Birth Story

Everyone says to write it down before too much time goes by, because the details that create the story get lost along the way.

This birth story began about 8 years ago with a well-planted seed, when I was witness to my beautiful sister Prairie giving birth to her son Jahsiah at her home in Chico, California.  The scene was set perfectly like something out of a hippie storybook; incense lit, Bob Marley playing on the stereo, inflatable baby pool set up in the living room, the midwife working tirelessly, and family all around, anxiously awaiting Jahsiah's arrival.  Fiercely powerful and warmly comforting woman that she is, Prairie created and held her space with great balance and intention, lovingly allowing everyone present a slice of her joy, pain, strength, endurance, and faith.  It was my first experience with birth, and one profound enough to relay this message to me: When I have children, I want to have them at home-the hospital is just not an option.

Heartbeat at Home

Fast-forward 8 years to a married and pregnant Angel, with the seed from so long ago having blossomed into an undeniably fortified tree.  My husband Dylan and I took an exploratory honeymoon traveling from East to West, following the path of the sun, with intentions to lay down our roots long enough to birth our baby naturally, at home, and on our own terms-a story we intended on writing without the help of institutionalized medicine.  After all, countless millennia of women have successfully birthed their babies in the wild; the trees, rain, soil, and fresh breeze among their children's first experiences outside of the womb.  Home-birth was our vision.

Settling on the magical landscapes of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, with the snow-capped mountains nearly hugging the sea, our path quickly led us to Carol.  We all fell in love rather immediately, as Carol was a midwife with vast experience and faith, and we set off on our journey to home-birth together.  Everything was right with the world, and our baby boy grew inside of me like a flower in the most fertile soil, his father vigilantly watering and feeding his growth every step of the way.  Months of preparations were made as we patiently awaited the harvest, creating our birth cave, the first place our baby would call home.  Even our cat was ready, acting as the guardian and keeper of the cave, and a powerful soothing presence during the labor that was to come.

Labor Land of Love Cave

By the time my husband started to sympathetically feel the nesting instinct, reluctant to leave our cave, we knew it was time.  My water broke two days before my due date, and for a few moments we experienced a sort of anxiety that is like no other, which seamlessly transitioned into love for each other and excitement to start the final leg of our journey.  We were ready, but as it turns out, our baby was not.  A few days of light laboring and no progress encouraged us to try some aggressive herbal inductions at home.  These quickly hurled us into what seemed like full-blown labor for 10 hours, only to dissipate by the morning when Carol came over, expecting to see me much deeper into contractions.  A trip to the hospital told us that is was a false alarm, and after all that time, we would just have to wait a bit longer for our flower to blossom.  We were tired, but elated at the second opportunity to birth our baby at home.

For the next ten days, we didn't get a single night of sleep.  The days were as calm as a serene pond, but the nights yielded uncomfortable contractions which varied from slight to intense, an hour apart to 7 minutes apart.  There was no discernible pattern to them, and I knew intuitively that they were not the kind that would bring a baby.  This was the most saddening part, because I wanted nothing more than to finally hold my baby in my arms, continually dreaming of that most amazing moment of relief, when after so much hard work I could collapse into the birthing tub, my prize looking me right in the eyes.

When I was one week past my due date, Carol came over to check my progress, and was faced with two emotionally and physically exhausted people.  She brought us wonderful news though, that I was dilating well and my cervix was 95% ready to pass our baby.  We were so overjoyed to be closer to meeting our little person, and by the time she left, I was again hurled into full-blown labor.  Throughout the night, I experienced the most intense contractions yet, with such a pattern as to tell me it was happening.  She returned in anticipation of our birth, and after some time realized again that I was not progressing as she would have hoped.  She suggested that perhaps I was just too tired from the last 10 days of sleeplessness, and that we should go to the hospital so that I could get some rest there.  This meant an epidural.  This simple word was already a far cry from my birth plan that, although I agreed to her suggestion, I cried the greatest tears of defeat into my husband's chest because I felt like I was already a failure.  If Prairie could do this at home, Jahlelah and Lindsey too, then why couldn't I?  

Partial Posse Shot

Always in the back of my head, however, were some of the most insightful words ever uttered; "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  John Lennon was really on to something with that, so as we left our cave, I attempted to maintain my positivity.  We bypassed the hospital right down the road to drive to another one an hour and a half away, whose motto was, "If you can't have your baby at home, have it here."  That atrocious car ride while in active labor was well worth it, it turns out, because although everything seemed to spiral out from arrival, we were given the space to process and accept the current situation and mourn the loss of our ideal birth scenario.

The epidural helped for the pain, but the contractions tapered off even more.  With the onset of the Pitocin, it seemed like we were moving forward, but after about another 10 hours of labor and no further dilation, examinations yielded the knowledge that in so many words, our baby was stuck.  The words I had dreaded since accepting to go the the hospital were finally uttered, and the doctors suggested that we seriously consider a Cesarean before it is an emergency.  Around midnight, my husband and I asked for a few minutes alone, the last of our heartfelt pow-wows before we would meet our baby.  

Staying in Touch with Each Other

It was time to face our fears, and it seemed we both were terrified.  Dylan, his mother's second of three children, all delivered via Cesarean, had the opportunity to face his latent emotions attached to the way that he entered the world, how that affected his view of his mother, and ultimately what that meant about himself.  I was able to share my greatest fears, those of dying during surgery and leaving Dylan alone with our baby, or worse, our baby dying and leaving us both shattered people scrambling to pick up the pieces.  But faith had gotten us this far together, and faith was going to have to help us find our way out as well, so we embraced and cried and loved and moved forward.  We had a baby to deliver.

Father and Son, Sachem Thunder

Dylan begged me to keep my eyes on his eyes throughout the entire operation, and he held me lovingly with the strength of a thousand men.  He spoke to me of the most beautiful times we've had together and the baby we would soon meet, asking me to recount stories for him to keep my mind away from what was happening on the other side of the curtain.  He refused to look, so as not to allow me to see the fear in his eyes.  He was the Earth and the stone for me, and as I was shaking like a leaf with fear and adrenaline, he was strong for me.  I knew then just how lucky our son was to have him as a father. And after I felt three grown adults wrestling my baby out of my pelvis where he had been wedged for a week or more, I heard him cry.  Nothing ever sounded so sweet and pure, and I would be willing to bet nothing ever will.  I saw Dylan with tears of happiness and amazement in his eyes, cutting our son's umbilical cord, seeing how large his hands were, still trying to keep my gaze away from containers filled with suctioned blood and membranes.  I then begged for more medicine because I started to feel the pain of the operation, and it was suddenly time to go to sleep.  I woke up unsure of whether I was dead or alive, since seeing Dylan holding baby Sachem could have been a bit of Heaven or Earth.  He told me I was alive and I believed him.  The truth is that my body was still alive, but my spirit had been completely reborn.  This isn't just Sachem's birth story, but that of a mother and father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and guardians.  

It didn't happen the way we hoped/expected/anticipated/planned.  There was no collapsing into the birth tub with relief after delivering my baby into my husband's arms.  There was no incense or Christmas lights to set the mood of the cave.  The guardian cat was not there in the operating room.  There WAS Bob Marley though.  Dylan said that while I slept and the doctors were putting me back together again, they played Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds," and let him hold the baby to his bare skin for the whole time.  For this and countless other things, I am thankful.  For being face to face with my greatest fears, for modern medicine, for Washington state, for Sachem Thunder, for the Great Spirit, for Amor Fidelis, I am thankful.  For knowing that this was not the time to feel like I was a disappointment, but rather to revel in the empowerment of life and birth, I am thankful.

New Family on the Elwha River

Sachem means chief or wise man of the North Eastern Algonquin natives, and we have learned that the most dependable wisdom is gained by navigating your way through real hardship and adversity.  This may not have been exactly how we wanted it to happen, but it's just what we needed, and hopefully our adaptability, health, and strength are signs of our fortitude as individuals and as a family.  After all, a healthy seedling planted by a human hand bares no fewer fruits than one spread by the wind.  To know this is to know life, and to accept all of it's mysteries and majesties.  

4 Years Later

      

Cracked Earth in Death Valley, CA

"It seems like just yesterday" seems to me a trite way to pick up where you left off.  However, we do what is appropriate in all situations, and this one warrants me starting off with...

...It seems like just yesterday that I wrote my first blog entry four years ago.  All things considered, I know it wasn't yesterday, but more accurately 1,501 yesterdays ago when I was embarking on a great adventure, and I can still feel the weight of every single day in between.  I have the scars, ex-boyfriends, college degrees, burnt bridges, tattoos, extra pounds, photographs, and trail dust to mark the memory of those days.  Perhaps more importantly, I have the acknowledgement that it was not all a dream, and certainly not a fantasy.

It is safe to say that I truly struggled through most of that time, as I was constantly fighting the subsequent rebirth aspect of death of self.  And where does THAT leave you, other than an ethereal limbo that is difficult to emerge from?  You simply cannot escape if you barely know you're there.  This state could possibly be compared to that acquaintance that some have who has never fully returned from an acid trip and relates better to a glass of orange juice than to his fellow man.  With the onset of my internship at the Tracker School, I was consciously putting an end to everything that I had previously known and grown tired of, accepting that I was going to start my life over.  It seems I did this without fully understanding the extent of that simple truth, and the painful death that had to come first.

Glass Beach at Fort Bragg, CA

Upon returning to Staten Island, I was lost without a map; up the creek without a paddle.  At times when I could have been growing socially and being more generally productive, it seemed perfectly natural for me to hide from all the world and go off into the woods or to the ocean by myself.  My camera was my faithful companion, and we made memories together.  That's all I needed.  But if we are made to wonder if a tree makes a sound when it falls alone in the woods, then what kept me from wondering if I really existed out there at all, if there was no one there to see me?

(Hence all of the pictures of my feet!  It seems, after reviewing all of my photo libraries, that some very well-developed themes have emerged.  Among them, Isolation, Wilderness, Juxtaposition, Shadows, Destruction, Tracks, Starkness, and my own Feet; surely proof to myself that -YES- in fact I did exist.)

With any crisis of identity (or worse- existence), there comes a very well-marked crossroad; that point when you've endured all the pain and learned all you need in order to choose your new direction.  With any luck, you'll have a welcomed guide to help you across that threshold, as it can be really fucking scary to take that leap alone.  It turns out that while wandering the urban jungle, feeling the isolation and starkness that my photos were portraying, I was never alone.

     

The Beach at Southampton, NY

Neither in the light nor the dark, but in the shadows were my friends and advisors.  Sometimes they led the way, and other times they followed me, but always we walked together.  This realization brought me to and through the threshold of my reality, to my proverbial rebirth.  One of the truths that I learned was that, yes, you can hide in the shadows forever, and lose yourself in that grey limbo between death and rebirth, in the world of dawn and dusk, the beauty of the beginning and the end, but then you'll never feel the warmth of the sunlight, or marvel at the distance of the stars.

I believe the real trick is to learn to live with the shadows, as well as the light and the dark.  One cannot and does not exist without the other, and even if you could conjure up a world where that is possible, the result would be blinding imbalance, that may be nearly impossible to consciously emerge from.